


Salvation's Kiss

by Zetal (Rodinia)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Demisexual Sam, M/M, Queer Sam Week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-03
Updated: 2016-07-03
Packaged: 2018-07-19 19:22:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7374277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rodinia/pseuds/Zetal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For Queer Sam Week!</p><p>While waiting for their dad to get back from giving Meg a fake Colt, Sam and Dean got worried.  Sam got mad about Dean stopping him from killing Yellow Eyes, and Dean got mad at Sam for not recognizing that Sam was more important to him than revenge.  You all remember that scene, right?  The one where Sam grabs Dean, slams him against a wall, and doesn't kiss him?</p><p>Well, Sam kissed him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Dean turned the music down. “Sammy?”

Sam sighed. Here it came. Sam still hadn’t decided between lying and saying he has no idea why he did it, or telling Dean the truth. It looked like he was out of time. “Yeah, I know.”

Dean glanced over at him. “You know, most of the time, I’m perfectly happy to sweep things under the rug and let ‘em stay there. This is different.”

“I know.”

There was a long silence. Dean was the one to break it. “Did you mean to do it?”

“No, Dean, Yellow Eyes possessed me and I tripped and fell on your lips.” Sam sighed and looked off in the distance. In South Dakota, there was a lot of distance to stare at. “And of course, I totally planned getting Dad caught and out of communication to create the perfect scenario.”

Dean snorted. “Well, congratulations then. Your plan worked perfectly.”

“I know, right?”

“You know what I meant. So stop being a smartass and give me a straight answer, would you?”

“You mean, did I wake up this morning and think to myself, this is it, this is the day I lose my mind and kiss my brother? No. I did not plan this, I did not mean for this to happen, and I don’t blame you a bit for freaking out over there and once this is over, if you want to send me off and never see me again, I get that.”

“Oh, for the love of… were you not listening back there?”

Sam turned and looked at Dean in surprise. “Of course I was listening. You’d rather let Yellow Eyes walk than see me get killed. Revenge isn’t worth losing me. I didn’t exactly let you finish your thought about barely holding it together. But that was before I lost my mind, and having me on the other side of the country is nowhere near the same as me being dead.”

“How much does it suck that you kind of know that from personal experience?” Dean said, and Sam chuckled. “So, yeah. So is this a self-esteem thing? Because I gotta tell you, if you were such a bad kisser you made people who can’t live without you run you off, you’d never have had Jess.”

“What are you talking about? Of course you can live without me!”

“Yeah, maybe I can. But I don’t want to.” Dean looked over to Sam again. “Did you have any warning?”

“More than you got,” Sam said.

“Considering that the first idea I had that you might do something like that was about three seconds after you’d done it, I would hope so. Come on.”

“Look, I didn’t mean to do it, which you know means I can’t exactly swear it won’t happen again. I’ve known for a while that… Dean, remember how after Sarah we had that talk about me really not needing to get laid, that I don’t experience the attraction unless I’m emotionally invested? So it doesn’t really do anything for me without it?” Dean nodded. “I told you there were two people I got invested in enough to experience the desire.”

“Yeah. Jess and Sarah.”

Sam rolled his eyes. Dean was so clueless sometimes. “Not Sarah. I never said Sarah. In fact, that was kind of the whole point of the discussion. I liked Sarah, if circumstances were different I could see this changing, but I was not attracted to her like that.”

“Oh.” Dean looked blank. “So who… I guess someone at college before Jess? Because I know there wasn’t anyone in high school, you’d have told me. And if there were going to have been someone since, it would be Sarah.”

“Actually, it’s high school _and_ since Jess.” Sam looked away. He didn’t want to see when Dean worked it out. He wasn’t sure he could take it.

“Who did you even know both before and after, aside from me and Dad? I guess there’s, like, Caleb, or Pastor Jim, or…” And there it went. The moment it clicked. “So, you’re… bi? You’re not gay, because then there wouldn’t have been Jess.”

Or not. “Biromantic. Gender matters a lot less than having that connection, and yes, the other one’s a guy.”

“Huh. There a reason you didn’t tell me that when you were explaining the demisexual thing?”

“Yeah, sort of.” Sam turned his head back, staring at Dean in disbelief. How had he not put the pieces together?

Dean slammed his hands against the steering wheel. “Really, Sammy? Dad, maybe I could see your point, although I really don’t think he’d give a crap either, but me? You have that little faith in me?”

“Huh?”

“You think I’d be an asshole about liking boys?”

“What? No!” Sam didn’t understand how Dean could even think that. Sure, Dean cracked jokes all the time, but he’d never been anything but well-behaved when they dealt with gay people on cases. He even responded pleasantly when guys hit on him in bars.

“Then what? What reason could you have for not telling me?”

“Because I didn’t want you to know who it is, you idiot. If you didn’t know guys were a possibility, made it less likely that if I fucked up in a small way, you’d start thinking along those lines. Of course, then I went and…”

“Wait. What?” Dean stared at Sam, and suddenly, the light came on. “Holy shit.”

“Yeah.”

“Since wh… since _high school_? Am I understanding that right?”

“Yeah. Since high school.”

“So what you’re telling me is that this was there when I was dying, when you found out about me being the one to carry you out of the fire… and you picked now to kiss me?”

Sam stared. He had no idea what to say to that. Eventually, he managed, “That’s your problem with this?”

“Of course that’s my problem with this! I was dying, and you were just gonna let me go without a kiss?”

“Uh, Dean. I wasn’t gonna let you go, period. Remember?”

“Not the point, Sammy!” Dean turned down the driveway to Singer Salvage Yard. “Dying man can’t get a kiss from the guy he’s completely devoted his life to, what’s this world coming to?”

“Fine! Next time you’re dying I’ll… wait, what?” Sam shook his head quickly trying to make this make sense. “First off, there better not be a next time you’re dying. Not for a very long time.”

“You keep me alive and I’ll do the same for you.”

“And… it sounds like… you want me to kiss you?”

“Have for a while now. Didn’t say anything at first because of Jess, and then we had that talk and I didn’t think it’d be fair to promise you anything I don’t think I could actually do…”

“So the part where I’m your brother doesn’t…”

Dean shrugged. “Yeah, I know, it’s screwed up and I’m a freak. But I’m not preying on you, you keep reminding me you’re old enough to make your own decisions now, so… Winchester morality, we’re not hurting anyone so what the fuck does it matter?”

“Huh.”

Dean shut down the Impala and turned toward Sam. “So you gonna kiss me again?”

Sam leaned forward, and things were starting to get really good when there was a tap at the window. And there was Bobby, with a shotgun and a very, very confused look on his face. “You boys come here for a reason, or just forget the guy who lived here knows that car when you were looking for your makeout spot?”

“Um.” Sam looked to Dean. Dean was the charmer who always knew what to say in awkward moments like this.

Dean put on his best carefree grin. “Hi, Bobby. Long time no see. Our dad’s been captured by demons, and we could really use your help in figuring out how to find him.”

Bobby nodded and lowered the shotgun. “Then get inside where the books are. And if you two feel like making out again, get somewhere I don’t have to watch. I hate PDAs.” Sam glanced at Dean, the two of them wearing identical confused faces. “Oh. Sorry. Were you supposed to have to talk me into helping you because of the last time your daddy brought you around?”

“Um… that too…” Sam said.

“Oh. Then I’m supposed to be mad at you for redefining the word brother? Like I hadn’t seen that one coming since Dean was the only one who could get Sam to eat for the first three days after John dropped you off? Sam, you were real careful when you came here to get organized for Stanford, but you told me enough that I could work it out.”

“You… could have warned us? Because I didn’t see it coming at all,” Sam said.

Bobby's done look hadn't changed. “You’re an idjit. Now come on, we’ve got family to save.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These were the anonymous messages sent throughout the week that led up to the fic.

Living life on the road didn't make life easy for Sam. He learned quickly to avoid making friends, to be self-sufficient, to make Dean all he let himself need. Dean was his big brother, best friend, and role model. So he figured he'd be like Dean and develop a hook up and head out approach to girls. But in high school, as hard as he tried, he never could find a girl he felt attracted to. He thought they were pretty, yes. Some might make cool girlfriends, if he could have that. But sex? No.

 

Late May, junior year, Sam comes home to find Dean washing the impala. No shirt, no shoes, shorts so short that he has to have borrowed them from a girlfriend. The pale skin and sun-golden hair against the inky gleam of the impala makes Sam stop and stare. Then Dean turns to say hi and his eyes are sparkling green with summer happiness, and Sam has to stammer out some bad excuse about an English test before locking himself in the bathroom to figure out what the heck is happening to him.

 

Sam grew up sheltered. He knew he was different, that he didn't quite relate to people the way his only role models did, but he had no idea what he was supposed to do instead. Talking to Bobby helped, a little, but it wasn't until he went to college that he started to really understand. College has classes and organizations and a bunch of other people all questioning the same things Sam was, and that helped Sam so much when it came time to figure himself out. 

In one of the classes he took, he met Tyson Brady. Brady reminded him a little of the beautiful brother he'd left behind, the one he was barely speaking to now, and he thought maybe he'd get that spark back. It didn't work quite the way Sam had expected. Brady wasn't the one. Sam realized that when he started to realize Brady was a bit of an asshole. But Brady did do one really good thing for Sam, even after turning into a complete jackwagon. Brady introduced Sam to Jessica Moore. 

Jess was beautiful, and fierce, and fun, and didn't take it hard at all when Sam's response to her flirting was to tell her he was asexual. She asked if he was aromantic, too, and Sam realized that his old reasons for not ever finding a girlfriend no longer mattered. He wasn't the hunter anymore. So he tried, and Jess was amazing. He fell in love, and one night, when Jess started pulling back, he pulled her back in.

Jess was confused. To be fair, so was Sam. But he was definitely feeling the sexual attraction he'd only felt once before. Next time he went to an LGBT meeting, he brought it up with some of the other ace folks there, and one of them helped him understand that there were possibilities between fully asexual and fully sexual. Sam did a bunch of research, and identified most closely with the label "demisexual."

 

So I had meant to leave it at what I'd already sent, but then I went for a walk and this just happened in my head. "Guys, I dunno, I identify as asexual but I got this intense sexual attraction last night." "Has it ever happened before?" "Once, with a guy i knew in high school." "Hmm. Well, you know, asexuality is a spectrum just like sexuality." "What do you mean?" "Sexuality goes from completely straight to completely gay, right? Asexuality's kind of the same way."

And then a guy Sam knows from a computer class pipes up. "Okay, think of it this way. Computer graphics run all the colors of the rainbow, right? Like being straight is pure red, and being gay is pure purple, but you have all kinds of orange and yellow and green and blue in the middle. Well being asexual is like computer graphics saturation. You can have your green all the way up and be really bright, or all the way down and be grey, or somewhere in the middle and be a muted shade, like olive."

 

Jess let Sam feel "normal". He wasn't the freak in the weird clothes who didn't know how to relate to people, whose hobbies included math club, knowing the subtle differences between twenty different kinds of ghost, and field-stripping assault rifles. He was a prelaw college boy with the hottest girlfriend on campus and a bright future that was all his own. So when Dean showed up, reminding Sam of all the ways he was not the normal boy he was pretending to be, it went badly. 

If Dean was here, it was important. To Dean, that meant hunting. But Sam wasn't going to make it easy, and he was going to make his new priorities clear. Jess was his life now. Dean was just a reminder of the life he'd left behind. Thought he'd salted and burned. So he made Dean work for it before he could even ask Sam to come help find their dad, and only the fact that it was Dean, and Sam couldn't remember ever seeing Dean look so lost and broken, could have made Sam say yes.

Sam hadn't expected walking away from Dean after the hunt to be so hard. But it was. Walking back into his golden life with his beautiful girlfriend and safe, happy future practically assured hurt. And then the fire brought it all down around him. Sam knew he'd probably have died in that fire if it weren't for Dean, trying to save a girl who was already dead by the time Sam was aware there was anything wrong. Later, sitting in the motel room, Sam asked Dean why he'd come back.

"Something bad was gonna happen. I knew it. Sammy, I don't remember much of the fire, but I remember the way it felt when I said goodnight to you that night. There was something weird in the air. It took me a while to place the weird feeling tonight, but it was that same weird feeling. I'm sorry i didn't recognize it sooner, maybe saved Jess for you. I'm just glad i recognized it in time to get there and save you."

 

Being back on the road with Dean is both heaven and hell. Seeing Jess on the side of the road after Bloody Mary felt like forgiveness and permission to move on, so Sam's trying. The thing is, he's right back in the life, which means the old reasoning behind not finding an emotional connection is back too. And without that connection, there's no chance of someone distracting him from his brother. And holy crap, the years apart were good to Dean.

He tells himself it's wishful thinking when he catches Dean looking at him a certain way. That it's just the old codependency when Dean is so thrilled that he sticks around after that mess with the scarecrow. Talking to the shrink had been oddly liberating. He told Dr. Ellicott everything. It had been funny, seeing the look on the doc's face at just how big Sam's issues with Dean were, how deep they ran. He wondered what Dean would say if he told him they needed to go back for the followup.

Cassie hurt. It was so weird. He'd known Dean slept with a lot of women, but somehow, realizing he'd actually loved one of them was different. Sam didn't want to admit to being jealous, because that would mean he wasn't just attracted to his brother. But it was the only explanation he could come up with. But then, the way Dean looked at him on the way out of town, when Sam asked about meeting someone worth giving up the life for... That wasn't his imagination, was it?

 

Seeing Meg again was weird. Dean was really weird about her. Couldn't he see that running into her again was no coincidence? So it was good to find out she was working for a demon. Possibly the demon. Sam let himself dream about what it would be like to have this done. Back to college, finish his degree - law school was probably off the table, but that was okay. He'd seen that glittering future, and he'd watched it go up in flames once. He wasn't going to put some other person in danger.

Dean didn't get it. For Dean, the hunt would never be over, and Sam got that. He didn't mind. He'd even come back once he'd finished his degree, if Dean would let him. But Sam couldn't believe that the only thing Dean wanted was for things to be like they had been. Did Dean really want to go back to being stuck in the middle of Sam and dad butting heads over everything, always being pulled apart between the two headstrong men he'd made it his life's work to take care of? 

Because that's exactly what happened when they started actually trying to work with John Winchester again. Sure, Sam and John had buried the Stanford hatchet. But that didn't mean Sam wasn't still butting heads with John every time they turned around. One thing Sam noticed was that this time, Dean was nearly always on his side. Even when he was asking Sam to stand down, Dean was just... There. By him. With him. It wasn't like it was before.

 

Standing there in the cabin, Sam wanted to hit Dean. He could have ended this. Killed the demon. But Dean wouldn't let him. And then... He would never have believed Dean would say what he was saying. That if his choices were Sam and yellow eyes alive, or Sam and yellow eyes dead, then he chose letting yellow eyes live. That he didn't *care* about getting revenge for mom if it meant losing Sam. That without Sam, he didn't think he could keep it together.

Sam didn't mean to kiss Dean. He didn't. It just happened, heat of the moment. And when Dean's phone rang and interrupted the moment, Sam backed away, terror and shame flooding him. Dad was missing, and Sam was... They had to go rescue their dad. Meg had him, Yellow Eyes had him, and Dean had an idea how to save him. Dean didn't say a word about the kiss as they packed up and drove to South Dakota.

**Author's Note:**

> *waves* I had fun being your anon this week!
> 
> Comments are loved almost as much as Dean and Sam love each other.


End file.
